And the showdown begins

[hork]

Let the battle begin

Clearly this story is primarily smoke and mirrors on both parts. But allow me to draw your attention to two of the more humorous statements in this specific article.

President Bush warned Democrats Tuesday to accept his offer to have top aides testify about the firings of federal prosecutors only privately and not under oath or risk a constitutional showdown from which he would not back down

One might mistakenly believe that the president values the Constitution if they read this quote. Isn't it funny how valuable and important the Constitution is when it serves the president's agenda and yet when it contradicts his desires it's simply "just a piece of paper"?

The White House offered to arrange interviews with Rove, Miers, deputy White House counsel William Kelley and J. Scott Jennings, a deputy to White House political director Sara Taylor, who works for Rove.

"Such interviews would be private and conducted without the need for an oath, transcript, subsequent testimony or the subsequent issuance of subpoenas," Fielding said in a letter to the Senate and House Judiciary committees and their ranking Republicans.

loosely translated, "this regime has made it standard operating procedure to lie at all costs. we fully plan to continue on this course as it has served our agenda well over the course of the past six years. as a result holding us accountable for our statements cannot and will not be tolerated."

and to think there will be people who actually defend this position...

[spoc22]

The President was wise to NOT allow this to become a dangerous precedent. I don't support his stance on this issue tho. I think he should have told the Dems to stick it where the sun don't shine. These attorneys serve at his pleasure and therefore he can appoint them and remove them for any reason he chooses.

[ldzppln]

Originally Posted by spoc22

The President was wise to NOT allow this to become a dangerous precedent.

A dangerous precedent? Hardly. The previous administration saw 31 of it's top aides testify in front of Congress on 47 different occasions. Go back further and you'll see presidential aides have tesitified in front of Congress for decades. The most recent president to refuse testimony of a WH aide? President Nixon (refused to allow Kissinger to testify in front of Congress).

Originally Posted by spoc22

I don't support his stance on this issue tho. I think he should have told the Dems to stick it where the sun don't shine. These attorneys serve at his pleasure and therefore he can appoint them and remove them for any reason he chooses.

However technically correct, it is extremely rare for an US Attorney not to complete his/her appointed term. The Congressional Research Service published this report last month that shows, since 1981, of the 468 confirmed US attorneys, only 10 left office involuntarily for reasons other than a change in administration (prior to the purge in December). Of these ten, most were relieved of their duty due to serious issues concerning their personal or prefessional conduct. In other words, the recent (politically motivated) firings of these (now 8) US attorneys is unprecedented. Which then lends to the question - if the Bush administration did nothing wrong here, why is it so difficult for them to figure out & explain what happened?

[spoc22]

Originally Posted by ldzppln

if the Bush administration did nothing wrong here, why is it so difficult for them to figure out & explain what happened?

I still don't see why they have to explain it.

[ldzppln]

Originally Posted by spoc22

I still don't see why they have to explain it.

Former US Attorney (under Reagan) Bob Barr tells us why it's important the White House comes clean.

It boils down to Congressional oversight, checks and balances, etc. Something to do with that pesky piece of paper... what's it called again? Oh yeah, the Constitution.

From the above referenced link:

Congressional oversight is one of the most important responsibilities of the United States Congress. Congressional oversight refers to the review, monitoring, and supervision of federal agencies, programs and policy implementation, and it provides the legislative branch with an opportunity to inspect, examine, review and check the executive branch and its agencies. The authority of Congress to do oversight is derived from its implied powers in the U.S. Constitution, various laws, and House rules.

And make no mistake about it... the US DOJ is an agency of the executive branch, and therefore falls under the jurisdiction of the US Congress.

In 1870, after the post-Civil War increase in the amount of litigation involving the United States necessitated the very expensive retention of a large number of private attorneys to handle the workload, a concerned Congress passed the Act to Establish the Department of Justice, ch. 150, 16 Stat. 162 (1870) setting it up as "an executive department of the government of the United States" with the Attorney General as its head. Officially coming into existence on July 1, 1870, the Department of Justice, pursuant to the 1870 Act, was to handle the legal business of the United States.

[hork]

Technically they do serve at the leisure of the president that is true. However, if they were in fact (as alleged) terminated because they refused to engage in election tampering (a phenomenon that has become synonymous with the current GOP leadership) then it seems that oversight becomes necessary as one clearly cannot trust those in the executive.

The funny thing is, the same folks who were so damned hell bent on removing the last President from office are the very same who so willingly turn a blind eye at the repeated crimes committed by the current president and his administration.

I still can’t figure out how it is those who claim to be morally superior are the very ones who take every chance they can to skirt (if not outright break) the law and how those who support them based on their principles of morality and righteousness refuse to see them for what they are. In fact I'd love to hear how Clinton's perjury (which I agree was wrong and he should have been held accountable) is any more serious than the repeated perjuries and other activities of bush and his administration. I'd love to hear that with facts not the tired old, "oh you're anti-bush so no matter what he does...." bs. But given I've been waiting for going on six years now and haven't yet heard any logical justification from anyone in D.C. or elsewhere, I don't really expect any anytime soon.

[ldzppln]

And then there is this...

Ex-prosecutor says US administration interfered in tobacco trial

A former US prosecutor who led a major trial of tobacco companies accused President George W. Bush's administration on Thursday of interfering and undermining her case against the cigarette-makers.

"The level of political interference has been unique to this (justice) department under the leadership of (former and current attorney generals) John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales," the ex-prosecutor, Sharon Eubanks, told AFP, confirming an earlier newspaper report.

Eubanks spent five years investigating cigarette-makers who were accused of misleading consumers about the risks of smoking, particularly relating to so-called "light" cigarettes. The probe led to an eight-month trial.

But in June 2005, on the eve of opening arguments at the trial, several Justice Department officials ordered her to reduce her penalty demands to 10 billion dollars from 130 billion dollars and to read out a closing statement they had prepared, Eubanks was quoted as saying by The Washington Post.

"I couldn't even look at the judge," she recalled.

Eubanks linked her decision to speak out to "a number of parallels" between her experience and an ongoing controversy caused by the Justice Department's firing of eight federal attorneys last year. A Senate committee is probing whether they were dismissed for political reasons.

Bush has vowed to fight efforts to force members of his administration to testify under oath about the sackings, setting up a potential constitutional crisis.

"When decisions are made now in the Bush attorney general's office, politics is the primary consideration... The rule of law goes out of the window," Eubanks was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

She left the Justice Department several months after the trial, having served in it since 1983.

The tobacco companies have appealed the case and no fines have yet been paid.

A Democratic congressman, Henry Waxman (news, bio, voting record), followed up on Eubanks's reported comments by demanding to see copies of communications between the Justice Department and the White House relating to the tobacco companies' trial.

[spoc22]

Would this be the same Sharon Eubanks who was is a Clinton appointee and a “Special Counsel” with the George Soros funded CREW, which bills itself a government watchdog group but by a 5-1 margin spends most of it’s time going after Republicans.? The same one who brought theses same charges up in 2005? The same charges that were investigated by the Office of Professional Responsibility who determined the charges were unfounded? The same Sharon Eubanks named in the following from the July 31st 2006 issues of the Legal Times:
July 31, 2006
By Emma Schwartz, Legal Times
The Justice Department has accused a public interest group of holding internal e-mails the agency says came from the computer of a former chief lawyer for its tobacco litigation who now works at the nonprofit organization.
In a brief filed July 22 in a Freedom of Information Act case, the government alleges privileged e-mails disclosed in the course of the litigation “appear to have been printed from the government computer of former department employee Sharon Eubanks.”
The “plaintiff is now on notice that it is in the possession of stolen property,” the government writes.
The allegations heightened tensions between Justice and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group that has sued the department for documents related to the DOJ’s 2005 decision to lower the civil penalties it was seeking against tobacco companies to $10 billion from $130 billion.
CREW first disclosed the e-mails earlier this month, during a deposition of former Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum. The DOJ seeks the return of the documents.
According to the government filing, the first set of e-mails contains drafts of an op-ed by McCallum that was published in USA Today on June 8, 2005. The second is a July 21, 2005, e-mail from Eubanks to Stephen Brody, her former deputy, in which Eubanks details her recommendation to McCallum for the “procedures that should be followed during the Office of Professional Responsibility investigation” stemming from allegations of improper influence in the decision to seek lower penalties.
CREW attorney Anne Weismann says the group received the e-mails legitimately. “It wasn’t Sharon Eubanks and it wasn’t from anyone who has a current or former connection with the Department of Justice,” she says.

Eubanks, who is not involved in the FOIA case, declined to comment, as did the DOJ. Judge Emmet Sullivan has scheduled a motions hearing for Aug. 7.”


hmmmmmmmm??????

[ldzppln]

Originally Posted by spoc22

Would this be the same Sharon Eubanks who was is a Clinton appointee and a “Special Counsel” with the George Soros funded CREW, which bills itself a government watchdog group but by a 5-1 margin spends most of it’s time going after Republicans.? The same one who brought theses same charges up in 2005? The same charges that were investigated by the Office of Professional Responsibility who determined the charges were unfounded?

Sharon Eubanks served with the DOJ for 22 years... That means she started with the DOJ back in the 80's. Let me see, who was the President back then... Oh yeah, Reagan.

I don't know much about CREW, but I'm not surprised if, when investigating politicians in DC, that a majority of the folks looked at were republicans. After all, given time, regardless of who is in charge, the majority party is going to get caught up in a few messes here and there. And for every "liberal" watch dog group out there, I'd be willing to bet there are five "conservative" groups. Some like to call themselves "think tanks". You know, like PNAC. I've told you about them before. They're the fellas that set the policy to attack, invade and subsequently occupy Iraq. They were planning the whole thing as early as 1998.

As for the charges she brought up in 2005... No surprise that an internal investigation found no wrong doing. That's standard practice when a department within the Bush administration investigates itself. Probably very similar to the internal investigation into the Valerie Plame leak. Oh wait, they never did one, even though W promised it. Odd.

[spoc22]

Originally Posted by ldzppln

Sharon Eubanks served with the DOJ for 22 years... That means she started with the DOJ back in the 80's. Let me see, who was the President back then... Oh yeah, Reagan.

In 1995 she became a member of the Senior Executive Service, and in 1995-1999, she was a Deputy Branch Director in the Civil Division of the Justice Department. She was a beaurocrat until Clinton made these appointments.

Originally Posted by ldzppln

I don't know much about CREW

It's a George Soros-funded 527 and that tells me all I need to know about them.

[ldzppln]

Okay, I'm confused (which is not all that unusual). Who exactly fired these US attorneys?

If Gonzales was not involved, and the president was not involved, who was?

The US Constitution includes the following statute:

(28 U.S.C. 541(c)) provides: "Each United States attorney is subject to removal by the President."

But Tony Snow told us last Wednesday that the president didn't know about the "removals":


Q And then there's a gap in emails. Was there any -- perhaps any emails about the President in there? And did the President have to sign off on this? Because the question was raised --

MR. SNOW: The President has no recollection of this ever being raised with him.

Q Just to follow, did you say, again for the record, that the President has no recollection of ever being asked about any of this?

MR. SNOW: Yes, the removal -- yes, that is correct.

I don't get it. The US attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president, and the president is the person who is authorized to appoint them, and fire them as he/she pleases... but Bush didn't know anything about this? Who's running the show then?

[spoc22]

Originally Posted by ldzppln

Who's running the show then?

It doesn't make any difference. There is absolutely NOTHING short of resignation that any of you guys will not criticize Bush for. Come to think of it, if he were to resign, you'd blame him for not doing it earlier.

[ldzppln]

Originally Posted by spoc22

Come to think of it, if he were to resign, you'd blame him for not doing it earlier.

lol - you're probably right.

[hork]

Looks like the heat is getting turned up. Guess we can't simply write it off as an anti-republican witch hunt anymore, damn what possible rationale could they're be now? Because we damn sure know it couldn't be an unethically motivated reaction on the part of anyone in this pious and righteous regime.

OK all that aside, I have to wonder how bad ole rummy is laughing at this particular part of the story

"President Bush again came to Alberto Gonzales' defense Saturday, saying the attorney general is "honorable and honest" and has his full support."

[spoc22]

bump